Tag: Environment
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Solutions: An environmental ditty
By Huck Fairman We live on a planet both large and small. There is so much, as we know, to it all. So much has chance and nature made to which we add what each can fashion, what we too eagerly have displayed, through our arts and imperatives of acquisition. Yes, all our stuff…
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SOLUTIONS 10/30: Artwork inspires us to take action to protect water bodies
By Huck Fairman As most readers are aware, man’s activity, and particularly his emissions from fossil fuel usage, are warming the earth – the atmosphere, the oceans and the continents. Many residents are doing their part and more to help address, publicize and correct the situation. But among the more striking efforts to bring these…
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New Jersey environmental wins and losses in 2019
By Michele S. Byers It’s the nation’s most densely populated state, with the most Superfund sites, and sometimes called Cancer Alley. This state we’re in faces many environmental challenges, including air pollution, threats to clean drinking water and sprawl. But New Jersey is also a leader in open space and farmland preservation, and still rightfully…
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Is your yard a ‘food desert’ of non-native plants?
By Michele S. Byers Your yard may be your neighbors’ envy … beautifully landscaped and well maintained, but if it’s full of non-native plants, to birds it’s a parched desert. A recent study by the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute found that birds who need high-protein insects often go hungry in yards landscaped with non-native plants.…
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‘Vine That Ate the South’ comes north
By Michele S. Byers You might think kudzu – jokingly referred to as “The Vine That Ate the South” – is an exotic sport, but it’s a fast-growing, highly invasive vine. And it is spreading into this state we’re in and beyond. Michael Van Clef, director of the New Jersey Invasive Species Strike Team, said…
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Red Bank council members vote to ban single-use plastic products
RED BANK – Members of the Red Bank Borough Council have adopted an ordinance that prohibits the use and distribution of single-use plastic bags, polystyrene foam containers and straws by business operators in town. The ban in Red Bank will take effect in one year. According to the ordinance that was adopted during an Aug.…
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New Jersey moves to block seismic blasting
By Michele S. Byers Imagine someone blasting an air horn next to your ear. Now imagine that sound thousands of times louder. That’s how experts describe the sound of seismic testing to whales, dolphins, sea turtles, fish and other marine life. Seismic testing, or blasting compressed air through water using airguns, is done to find…
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Mary Oliver, nature poet
By Michele S. Byers The late Mary Oliver, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet who passed away earlier this year at the age of 83, was an artist who used her words to paint pictures of the natural world. Her verses express deep reverence for nature as sources of beauty, solace and wisdom. “I could not…
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Terra Nova Garden Club to offer scholarship to high school student with environmental interests
The Terra Nova Garden Club of Edison is offering a scholarship to a high school senior who plans to attend college in the fall. The applicant must be a resident of Edison, a senior in an Edison high school, have completed community service hours, and have been actively involved in an environmental or gardening project…